Stable and solid foundation implies a positive outlook for the future.. I'd say Interplay is anything but, even in their heyday. Selling some IPs would give them some money and let them pay off some debt, but even crack addicts that win the lottery go broke pretty quickly. I wouldn't call that stable.

They, rightly, want the brand. hardcoe old-skool fan boys will object, but the fact is Bethesda have revived a franchise with a Game of the Year that's been met with much acclaim. Exclusivity seems like a small ask in comparison to what they could garner from an Interplay writhing in its death throes. Interplay having allegedly, right royally screwed up on their end of the signed agreement.

Well the Fallout MMO license is a valuable asset. I don't imagine Zenimax has plans to use it internally - Zenimax Online Studios is already working on a project. It also seems unlikely that they'd license it out to someone else - if the game did poorly it would hurt the Fallout brand and if it did well it could become a competitor for ZOS's own project. Even if they aren't planning to use it they do need to protect their assets. If they don't they could set a precedent that one can use Bethesda assets without permission - it's unlikely but not something any company wants to see happen.

As for the second lawsuit, that one I have a harder time speculating on, although if they're going to sue Interplay for breaking their contract it really makes sense to go after everything they've broken. It would be odd not to.


I'm pretty sure Bethesda didn't get a cut of original Fallout sales. I suppose it's possible that they could have negotiated for a cut of future sales (If you want to release these games on Steam we get 10%) but the contractual information we've gotten doesn't suggest that to me.

I also don't think Bethesda is trying to keep the original games off the shelves. As I've mentioned before I'm pretty sure the sales of any Fallout product works in Bethesda's favor, particularly with New Vegas being released next year.

While there are probably secondary objectives I think the primary issue here is the simple breach of contract.


That's fair enough.

To be honest I don't know why Herve Caen hasn't liquidated the entire company. Trying to build it back from the ground up was an unlikely scenerio and since its only real value were it's IPs and brand name why not sell those off and start fresh?

Because everyone worth a damn that worked there when it mattered has moved on? What could he go on to do? Start another doomed company? Who would hire him after he has run so much into the ground? No one that is capable of getting a job in the games industry would, in their right mind, choose to work for him again. No, I think this was a last ditch effort to get something, anything out of the one thing he controlled that still had any value whatsoever.

I just wanted to step in and compliment how much this thread has improved. The discussion of the lawsuits has been kept constructive and civil and the discussion of Interplay's more general business practices and IPs has been kept connected to the topic at hand and avoiding any outright Interplay bashing.

Keep up the good work (and don't drag this thread off topic by replying to this!)

Devils Advocate time, Jason Anderson did, and Chris Taylor still does work for him....

But I agree with the main sentiment.

Anderson left for greener pastures. And I love Chris, he seems like a standup guy.. but while most of the team from Black Isle went on to other jobs in the industry.. he went on to make a board game. I don't know if he did that by choice or if he just didn't have the skillset to be hired by someone.

If anyone is going to the trial -> I'll be the one picketing in front of the court house with the "Free Interplay!!!" sign.

I believe he means that Eric and Herv? Caen would have trouble finding employment elsewhere if they sold all of the company's assets. However this line of the discussion is moving towards Caen-bashing, and that's not appropriate for the forums.


Chris is a board game enthusiast, one can be interested in playing and making multiple sorts of games.

Yeah, that's indicative of a lot.

Changing between PnP/Board games and "Cult" areas of gaming isnt uncommon, and often leads to better results (I'm thinking specifically of Jordan Wiseman, formerly of FASA (Pen and Paper RPGS and combat games - Most notably Battletech), then FASA Interactive/Microsoft (Mechwarrior most notably), Back to combat tabletop games (Mage Knight and the whole "clickybase" explosion) and now back to Computer games again (Still to see what he's going to turn out...).

Sid Meir is a big boardgames player, most notably being inspired for Civ by a boardgame.

And yet ... look at Newegg's listing for Fallout Trilogy.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832136011

I'd say the fact that the compilation is listed under the header "Fallout Trilogy - 3 Pack PC Game Bethesda" and that Bethesda addresses are listed under Manufacturer Contact Info is pretty indicative of both the potential for confusion and that there could indeed be "real monetary consequences" for Bethesda.

That annoys me. I don't care if Bethesda holds the IP, the company did not make those games. Interplay have, Interplay always will have. No IP sale is going to change that, so putting it under the name of another company is kinda insulting to the people who ACTUALLY made those games, and I don't think Beth should profit from someone else's work.

If you were addressing Lady Evenstar's post above, her point was that Interplay certainly appears to be tying the Bethesda name to the "Fallout Trilogy" package, which is definitely misleading. And that's an Interplay sale, not Bethesda.

To be fair to Interplay - though I think the Fallout Trilogy is misleading - they're not responsibe for a listing on a webpage that is obviously an error. It's for Bethesda to identify and remove stuff like that, surely. The same mistake could have been made if it had been Fallout 1 on its own, in its own case. Whoever created the listings and price was obviously on a roll. Everyhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=fallout&x=0&y=0 there has Bethesda in the title.

Edit: Here you go, don't ask me why I searched for Crash, but it worked. Same site: Crash Tag Team Racing and Crash Twinsanity are both http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=crash+bandicoot&x=0&y=0 as Vivendi Universal games. But http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.aspx?Image=79-200-500-02.jpg%2c79-200-500-03.jpg%2c79-200-500-04.jpg%2c79-200-500-05.jpg%2c79-200-500-06.jpg%2c79-200-500-07.jpg%2c79-200-500-08.jpg%2c79-200-500-09.jpg%2c79-200-500-10.jpg%2c79-200-500-11.jpg%2c79-200-500-12.jpg%2c79-200-500-13.jpg%2c79-200-500-14.jpg%2c79-200-500-15.jpg%2c79-200-500-16.jpg%2c79-200-500-17.jpg%2c79-200-500-18.jpg%2c79-200-500-19.jpg%2c79-200-500-20.jpg%2c79-200-500-21.jpg&S7ImageFlag=0&WaterMark=1&Item=N82E16879200500&Depa=8&Description=Crash%20Tag%20Team%20Racing%20Playstation%202%20game%20VIVENDI is a Sierra release.

I did type that after seeing Evenstar's post, thought I'd assume Beth would want the earlier releases under their belt too if they hold the IP now?

I don't see what the issue here is, if the games were transferred to Bethesda they wouldn't suddenly be listed as the developers. Bethesda would acquire distribution/publishing rights to the games, just as they have publishing rights to WET or Brink. 2K Games was a distributor and co-publisher for TES IV: Oblivion and I don't think anyone gave them credit for making them.




Since this has been bumped up I might as well ask this here:


Their Fallout MMO was going to run on the PC, consoles, and handhelds? :blink:

I'm going to hope being "compatible with and accessible on" implies you can access your character stats or something, and they weren't trying to suggest you could actually play the game on this platform.

It'd be funny to see Fallout in a Bethesda branded box, but I doubt the developers of FO take much offense to anything going on with this case. The shut down of BIS and the sale of the IP would probably offend them more, if at all. And for profiting from others' work, well...they already did it with FO3, no ?

No, since they created FO3. Even if bits of the story were just rehashed material, the story isn't actually the majority of the work.

That's why it was meant a joke playing on the latter half of your post and things for the setting, thought the smiley made that much obvious.

One thing people seem to forget is that without Bethesda, those old games would have never been re-released in the first place. They were practically abandonware until Bethesda came along and got Interplay back in action.

And as for it being Beth's responsibilty to police errors.. it's not. Part of the contract stipulated that Interplay would monitor those things. This is why they wanted things submitted for approval most likely. Bethesda wanted Fallout 3 to be Fallout 3 and was willing to let Fallout 1/2 to be what they were. Interplay tried to piggyback on the commercial success of Bethesda's title. Quite foolish really considering the results likely would have been the same had they complied with Bethesda. But then again, when you are 30 million dollars short you may not want to call the people who can pull the plug on your life support.

I'm fairly certain you are incorrect.

Interplay had a compilation out before Bethesda purchased the rights to make Fallout 3, 4, and 5. Bethesda's game certainly raised awareness of the original games, and it may have even extended their shelf life - but they have never been out of print.

Curious as to what you mean by this, anyway. Even if this were true, so what ?

When Interplay went defunct they were out of print and there was no digital distribution. Of course there was still copies floating around but you couldn't walk into stores and find it on the shelf most places. Even online retailer stock was pretty limited. So yes, had Bethesda not saved Interplay from bankruptcy then those original games probably would have disappeared entirely.

Thought the smiley was more of a "Agree with me ?" kind of thing.